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December 6, 2017December 6, 2017

Apple Pay Cash is Finally Available to Use in the iMessage App

Have you ever found yourself in the situation where you had to pay your friend back for something? Maybe it was a friend’s birthday gift, or your debit card wasn’t working when you went out the other night? There are many ways to do this and even more ways if you use technology. We’ve been waiting for Apple’s answer to this challenge for a while now, but we don’t have to wait any longer. If you have an iPhone with iOS 11.2 installed, you should be good to go. You can find the Apple Pay Cash app icon in the iMessages app tray. Well, you have to set it up in the Wallet app first.

In order to do this, simply open Apple Wallet and then tap on the Apple Pay Cash card. From there, go through the steps to add a debit card. What’s great is that Apple Pay Cash uses debit in order to avoid fees from credit cards. If you already have a debit card saved in Apple Pay, then it will recommend adding the card to Apple Pay Cash. In order for this to work, though, both the sender and the recipient will need to have Apple Pay Cash enabled on their phones. If the recipient has not yet enabled it, you will get a notification within the iMessage app that will say the recipient “cannot receive payments sent with Apple Pay at this time”.

What you choose to do with your money is up to you. You can apply it to Apple Pay purchases in stores, apps or on the web. Alternatively, you can transfer the money to your bank account. Apple Pay Cash is available for the iPhone, iPad and it’s compatible with the Apple Watch. If you’ve got a Mac you’re out of luck as it isn’t compatible with macOS. Maybe in the future though? Should it be available with macOS? I mean, from a consumer perspective, I would say that they should. Maybe there is a specific reason for it not being available. But why not? In theory, people are using iMessages on their Mac and could connect it to their bank account as well.

Warning – I am going to rant for a moment because this was announced back in June during Apple’s WWDC. It was expected that this would be released in September, along with the iPhone X and iPhone 8. But alas, it’s just available now – in December.

I’m starting to get more and more annoyed with Apple. They don’t have these products ready when they say they will. So why announce them in the first place? I am not going to drone on about the iPhone X debacle, but how can you promise a timeline and then not be able to deliver on it? Especially on this kind of scale. It’s not just devices, but it’s also features now. Maybe Apple Pay Cash isn’t an essential feature of the iPhone, but they planted that seed in our brain. We thought it was going to be available. Every time I hear an advertisement for Square Cash, I think why don’t you just use Apple Pay Cash, and then I remember it hasn’t been available. But it is now. So enable it. Use it and enjoy it!